Narratives of Conflict

By Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis

When we talk about narratives, we define it as the spoken or written account of connected events, which could be real or imagined, that provide a chain of events that are recounted to others and especially to future generations.
In intractable conflicts, a certain narrative of the conflict is created, which nurtures a separate collective memory by each party to the conflict that tries to legitimize the cause of one side against the cause of the other side. Such collective memory is considered as the sole and undeniable truth, which is passed on to succeeding generations through history books, literature and other narratives.